Across America the spring and summer months bring a flurry of activity on baseball and softball fields. From Little League™ teams, to high school teams, to recreational summer leagues, people of all ages hit the fields for a bit of sport and relaxation. While the professional fields and many college fields have real bullpens, most high school and recreational fields do not have any sort of dedicated area which a pitcher can use to warm up before entering the game.
Further complicating matters for pitchers is the need to position themselves a requisite distance from a device symbolizing a home plate so that they warm up using the distance that they will be required to throw the ball during the game. While some recreational leagues are more social than competitive, this lack of a bullpen is disruptive for competitive Little League™, middle school, high school, and college teams.
Several devices have been proposed for laying out a ball field, but these devices are typically cumbersome and too complex for the creation of a temporary bullpen. Exemplary devices of this sort are illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,160,324; 4,978,121; 5,556,090; and 5,803,841.
As another alternative, coaches or pitchers may bring a measuring tape with them to the game so that they can measure out an impromptu bullpen. Because of the distances involved between a typical pitching mound and the home plate, these measuring devices are usually purchased from the same sort that surveyors, real estate agents, and the like use for measuring yards, buildings and the like. While such measuring tapes are adequate for many purposes, there is still a need for a device that simply and efficiently allows the creation of an impromptu bullpen so that pitchers may warm up using a proper mimicry of a pitching mound to home plate distance.